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Re:Coded: A postmodern retelling KH1 and CoM?

Member

I know postmodernism is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot but does anyone think that Re:Coded is a deliberate retelling of the first game? It seems almost like Link's Awakening from the Zelda games where everything was revealed to be a dream but the experiences the player/Link had were real. I maybe be grasping at straws but is Re:Coded a postmodernist take on the first game?

Vulpes Chronicler

What I'm about to say, I say as someone who is quite happy with coded, think it has excellent gameplay and a better story than it is given credit, and wish the game were available in some console form.

On the subject of coded's adaptation of KH1 assets and settings: I take efforts as a critic never to mistake laziness as intent. Maybe I take that too far sometimes, but while I think coded does an admirable job with its (budget-enforced) reuse from an entertainment perspective, I don't think I'd personally assign it any literary quality for doing so.

eien no chikai

I don't know, maybe? Re:Coded never felt as repetitive to me as CoM. It had great gameplay, I'm not a fan of the minigame bosses, but the core combat worked really well. I love Re:Coded, but I think that it works best as a DS game, on a small screen. Re:CoM is for me the ugliest KH game, the pretty pixel graphics did not translate well to the HD version and it just looks really plain and clinic. I know it has a story explanation and all but that doesn't make it any less dull. So Re:Coded is fine as it is, I hope it never gets a console game.

But yeah, I think Re:Coded did it's thing well, and I remember feeling so good getting to go back to Traverse Town, it did give me some of that comfy nostalgic feeling KH1 always gave and still gives.

Bronze Member

I also am one of Re:Coded's greatest apologist.
As for the KH1 retelling, I don't see it.
I don't know, for me the game never felt a KH1 rerun from the start, with Mickey constantly checking on Data-Sora (a little treat often forgotten: we were all bummed by how little King screentime we had in previous games, well here you go).
The gameplay different every time also helped making things feel different, the Disney stories were sometimes played differently enough, and ultimately, Re:Coded stops being KH1's plot copy after Agrabah.

A little though of mine, you can dislike this game, but I feel like quite a few people just SEE the KH1 intro, or hear that the game reruns KH1's plot, and they automatically switch on "useless retelling, must hate" mindset.
Just because the story does doesn't mean the game itself will.

i'm nobody

The whole series is predicated on this post-modern notion of combining and subverting narratives across genre lines and in new, non-linear ways -- so yeah! I'd say re:Coded is a post-modern retelling of what is already a convoluted, profoundly post-modern beginning.

Member

The whole series is predicated on this post-modern notion of combining and subverting narratives across genre lines and in new, non-linear ways -- so yeah! I'd say re:Coded is a post-modern retelling of what is already a convoluted, profoundly post-modern beginning.

Sora did make a reference to the whole experience of KH1 being a dream. Kingdom Hearts is pretty postmodern meta series and the narrative elements/forms in the games reflect this? I never thought of the series itself as postmodern but Re:Coded is where I felt that game was an affection parody of itself and the narrative conventions of the series.